A Russian Attack on Montenegro Could Mean the End of NATO
"President Trump Curiously Well Versed In Specific Russian Talking Points | Rachel Maddow | MSNBC"
Trump doesn’t think the country is worth defending. Putin has already tried to destabilize it once—the West can’t let it happen again.
By Jeffrey A. Stacey | July 27, 2018, 2:10 PM
Montenegrin Army soldiers fire artillery look at the Montenegro flag during preparations on the eve of Independence day, on May 20, 2010 in Cetinje, Montenegro. (SAVO PRELEVIC/AFP/Getty Images)
Russia has repeatedly outsmarted the West in recent years, managing to play a weaker hand with remarkable skill. Moscow has finely honed its skills in information warfare and hybrid warfare, relying on methods including pressure diplomacy, fake news, and foreign electoral intervention. Along the way, it has taken parts of Georgia and Ukraine by force and knocked both the United States and Britain down several pegs geopolitically.
Russia is not as powerful as it was in the Soviet era but, thanks to President Vladimir Putin’s strategic thinking, it is now regularly punching above its weight
-- Russia is not as powerful as it was in the Soviet era but, thanks to President Vladimir Putin’s strategic thinking, it is now regularly punching above its weight --
in global affairs. Russia is far more effective than China in kneecapping the West whenever it can, while constantly seeking and frequently finding ways to undermine it.
Most worryingly for the West, the coup de grâce could come in the Balkans, long the stage for Russian competition with the West. No one knows what Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump agreed to in their two-hour private meeting in Helsinki earlier this month. Trump may have handed Putin a list of key marginal congressional races in which he needs Russia to interfere. It’s more likely that they talked about NATO, Crimea, and Ukraine—and that Putin got what he wanted from Trump.
Indeed, Trump appears to be playing along with a Russian ploy that could shatter the NATO alliance .. https://www.vox.com/world/2018/7/18/17585984/trump-nato-montenegro-russia-carlson .. by going after its newest member. “Montenegro is a tiny country with very strong people,” the president told .. http://www.foxnews.com/transcript/2018/07/21/where-does-president-trumps-relationship-with-russia-and-putin-stand.html .. the Fox News host and Trump admirer Tucker Carlson, the day after meeting with Putin. “They have very aggressive people. And they may get aggressive, and congratulations, you are in World War III,” he added. An armed Russian incursion in Montenegro—involving hybrid or traditional warfare—would give Trump an opportunity to make good on his word to Fox News and tell NATO allies that Washington will not honor Article 5 of the NATO treaty and join its allies in coming to Montenegro’s aid.
Without U.S. involvement in an operation by the NATO Response Force—NATO’s multinational high-readiness attack force—Europe would likely back off and not respond to a surprise assault. Russia’s attack would not occur via land-based forces, which would have to travel through multiple countries that lean Western. Instead, the attack would likely come by sea and air.
-- Russia has already attempted a coup in Montenegro to prevent it from joining NATO --
in the first place, and more recently, developments in Macedonia have led to Russian intelligence agents from the FSB—the main successor to the KGB—deploying in order to attempt to foment unrest there, as well as in Greece, where two diplomats were just expelled for ginning up opposition to a Greek deal with Macedonia to change the latter’s name and put to rest a long-simmering dispute.
Although Russia will never attack U.S. or Western forces directly—the several hundred Russian mercenary soldiers killed by U.S. forces in Syria recently are a case in point—it actually doesn’t have to. Russia can mortally wound NATO without ever engaging its forces head-on. Not only are the FSB and GRU—Russia’s military intelligence unit—increasingly targeting the Balkans, but Russia has also now deployed the bulk of its most effective military forces on its western border.
Montenegro is NATO’s newest and, in many ways, its weakest member. Having only become independent from Serbia in 2006, its minuscule population of about 630,000 features armed forces that number only around 2,000. It is a small and peaceful country, the only one of the former Yugoslav republics that did not get caught up in the violent aftermath of the breakup of Yugoslavia.
However, even before it was independent and well before becoming a member of NATO, Montenegro was and continues to be a contributor to NATO forces in Afghanistan, making a significant contribution in per capita terms. In fact, at Washington’s request, Montenegro actually increased its deployment in Afghanistan in 2017. But Russia has been pressuring Montenegro for the past decade.
In 2017, after the Montenegrin Parliament voted in favor of joining NATO, the Russian Foreign Ministry said .. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39738238 .. the government had “ignored the voice of reason and conscience” and that Russia reserved “the right to take steps aimed at defending our interests and national security.” Russia rapidly banned imports of all Montenegrin wine and declared an advisory for Russians traveling there, while Putin’s spokesman threatened further “retaliatory actions.”
Montenegro holds Russia responsible for attempting to carry out a coup against the current president, Milo Djukanovic (when he was still prime minister), on election day in October 2016, accusing 14 individuals—Russian and Serbian nationalists, including two members of the GRU—of planning to attack state buildings and kill Djukanovic. Fittingly, it was Montenegro’s current prime minister, Dusko Markovic, whom Trump literally pushed out of his way in his first visit to NATO headquarters in Brussels.
Will Trump Be Meeting With His Counterpart — Or His Handler?
"President Trump Curiously Well Versed In Specific Russian Talking Points | Rachel Maddow | MSNBC"
It's a Trussia round-up time
A plausible theory of mind-boggling collusion.
By Jonathan Chait
Artwork by Barbara Kruger for New York
On June 14, 2016, the Washington Post reported that Russian hackers had broken into the Democratic National Committee’s files and gained access to its research on Donald Trump. A political world already numbed by Trump’s astonishing rise barely took notice. News reports quoted experts who suggested the Russians merely wanted more information about Trump to inform their foreign-policy dealings. By that point, Russia was already broadcasting its strong preference for Trump through the media. Yet when news of the hacking broke, nobody raised the faintest suspicions that Russia wished to alter the outcome of the election, let alone that Trump or anybody connected with him might have been in cahoots with a foreign power. It was a third-rate cyberburglary. Nothing to see here.
The unfolding of the Russia scandal has been like walking into a dark cavern. Every step reveals that the cave runs deeper than we thought, and after each one, as we wonder how far it goes, our imaginations are circumscribed by the steps we have already taken. The cavern might go just a little farther, we presume, but probably not much farther. And since trying to discern the size and shape of the scandal is an exercise in uncertainty, we focus our attention on the most likely outcome, which is that the story goes a little deeper than what we have already discovered. Say, that Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort told their candidate about the meeting they held at Trump Tower with a Russian lawyer after they were promised dirt on Hillary Clinton; and that Trump and Kushner have some shady Russian investments; and that some of Trump’s advisers made some promises about lifting sanctions.
But what if that’s wrong? What if we’re still standing closer to the mouth of the cave than the end?
Watch Sanders get caught lying on Fox News again. And Kirstjen Nielsen who is running Homeland Security now. The latest Trump political sycophant. She lies about the terrorists at the southern border too.
The lie of a crisis on the southern border is becoming a reality because of the shutdown based on that lie.
How the Border Wall Is Boxing Trump In [...] “How do we get him to continue to talk about immigration?” Sam Nunberg, one of Mr. Trump’s early political advisers, recalled telling Roger J. Stone Jr., another adviser. “We’re going to get him to talk about he’s going to build a wall.” https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/05/us/politics/donald-trump-border-wall.html
Trump was elected by creating a false sense of crisis. Trump is governing by crisis creation. What's the deal, Don? Ok, to smash the system. Got it.
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Trump Looks Ahead To Worst Year Ever As Democrats Retake Control Of House | The Last Word | MSNBC
MSNBC Published on Jan 3, 2019
The most racially diverse Congress in history was sworn in with Nancy Pelosi as its Speaker. House Democrats (and some Republicans) voted to reopen the government without funding for Trump's border wall. The LA Times predicts that 2019 will be the worst year of Donald Trump's life. Lawrence discusses with Joy Reid and Michelle Goldberg.
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